Magical radiance filled the sky, brilliant as fireworks, momentarily staining even the chaotic black sun with color.
Clutching her severed arm, Paluriel hovered midair, staring at the beholder as colossal as a hill.
She had underestimated her opponent's strength. Though both were quasi-deities, this beholder's mental magic was astonishingly potent—strong enough to dominate even an erinyes like her, nearly driving her to plunge her daggers into her own allies.
Paluriel had been forced to sever her own arm, using the excruciating pain to snap back to her senses.
Fortunately, this terrifying foe was finally dead.
Its gargantuan body, radiating neon hues from running rampant with wild magic, swelled continuously as foul, reeking blood gushed from the central, largest eye.
Originally, a single glare from this central eye could obliterate the soul of any undead within its sight.
Now, however, a lance had impaled the eyeball, pumping in vast dark magic until the eye burst open from within.
Paluriel gazed at the figure galloping across the air atop a skeletal horse, her eyes growing increasingly dazed.
When she was being controlled just now, she seemed to have caught a glimpse of this figure revealing their true power.
The vast magic unleashed in that split second had cowed every beholder present. The warrior disguised as Melina had hurled a lance capable of piercing the stars, running through the greatest beholder.
Though the figure had quickly reined in their power, Paluriel was certain that what had just been used was a might transcending mortality.
With their leader dying and heavy casualties inflicted upon them, the remaining beholders began fleeing in all directions.
Paluriel exhaled in relief. They had weathered the attack at last.
The black-armored knight rode over, carrying a dripping, bloody severed arm in hand.
Paluriel took the severed limb and casually pressed it against the wound. Flesh and bone knit back together, seamlessly reconnecting as though it had never been injured.
Her body possessed potent regenerative abilities, but it was thanks to it being her own arm; otherwise, recovery would not have been so easy, requiring a period of recuperation before she could exert full force again.
Now, she was largely healed.
"I almost killed you just now," Paluriel said, puzzled. "You still bothered to retrieve my severed hand?"
"It was merely convenient. You fought well back there, too."
"Convenient, you say? The moment I fell under hypnosis, you exploited the beholder's mental flaw to pierce its psychic shield, and then took the trouble to fish back my severed arm..." Paluriel sorely wished she could pry off the helmet right now and see who was underneath.
Unfortunately, the knight offered no explanation, treating it as though it were nothing more than a trivial trifle.
"You are undoubtedly a deity," Paluriel pressed. "I won't ask for your name, but I want to know why you're risking your neck for a bastard like Arthas. Entering the battlefield in person isn't just doing someone a casual favor. Does he have some kind of leverage over you?"
"You're overthinking it."
Leaving behind only those brief words, the knight rode the skeletal steed back toward camp.
Thanks to the swift assassination of the beholder leader, the undead side suffered very few casualties in this battle—only two warships crashed and around twenty thousand cannon fodder destroyed.
To the overall undead host, such a loss was practically negligible.
In contrast, over a hundred thousand beholders and auxiliary demon cannon fodder had perished, blanketing the ground in fiendish carcasses.
Yet following this victory, fresh demon hordes would soon arrive. If this war of attrition dragged on, ordinary undead forces would soon be ground down to nothing.
However, that only applied to ordinary armies.
True undead only grew more numerous the more they fought.
Grey dust fluttered down. The corpses of weaker demons were swiftly transformed into skeletons and zombies, missing arms or legs. Quite naturally, they cannibalized one another, tearing off spare parts from fallen comrades to fit onto themselves, quickly attaining combat readiness.
The tens of thousands of cannon fodder just destroyed were replenished almost immediately.
Such was the efficacy of the Undead Scourge: as long as the war continued, the undead would never lack conventional forces.
The beholder corpses, in particular, were top-grade materials that could by no means go to waste.
Ange Watson dispatched the train-like undead worms, which began gorging themselves on the dead beholders. Once sated, the worms resumed wall-building, but this time, the walls they extruded were embedded with dense clusters of eyeballs, presenting an utterly terrifying sight.
These eyeballs inherited some of the beholders' traits, capable of exerting mental pressure on foes with a frightening effect, and a few could even cast minor offensive spells.
Adapting to local circumstances, utilizing every available scrap of material to strengthen themselves, and swelling their ranks through battle—this was standard undead doctrine.
By the time the next wave of demon forces arrived, Watson's undead army had grown by several tens of thousands beyond their initial deployment, and the bone-and-flesh barricades had been erected like a sprawling labyrinth, posing an insurmountable obstacle to the demonic advance.
The fighting continued. Wave upon wave of demon hordes swept forward like tidal surges, only to be blasted to pieces by the undead artillery fire. Under the effect of the Undead Scourge, their remains were converted into new undead, continuing the endless cycle.
From the Hells, Anbaixiu watched the shifting battlefield. Up to this point, this counteroffensive had been executed brilliantly, proceeding even more smoothly than anticipated. If this kept up, the Undead Scourge would continue to snowball.
Theoretically, the ranks of the undead would swell until they saturated this putrid grassland. Anbaixiu would then only need to adjust the spatial conduits on the Blood River battlefield to turn this fetid prairie into the new frontline, cleanly halting the demonic offensive and passing his trial as a newly elevated Archduke of the Hells.
Yet it could never be that simple.
Anbaixiu was not waiting for such a perfunctory wargame. Aside from dispatching that beholder assault, the demons had sent nothing but small fry afterward, with barely any decent high-ranking demons in sight.
Mad as those demon lords were, they were no fools; they had to be brewing something.
And then there was Cyric, the Prince of Lies. Anbaixiu had dangled the bait for so long, yet there hadn't been the slightest stir.
Whether he took the bait or not, there ought to have been some reaction.
"Don't tell me Cyric chickened out?"
Anbaixiu remarked with a sigh, then prepared to go mint money.
Waging war was burning money. The undead's logistical demands were low, but that didn't mean nonexistent. Every round of large-scale saturated magical bombardment burned hard, cold cash. Anbaixiu felt a pang in his chest watching the numbers plummet. He couldn't keep this up indefinitely; it was time to forge a new batch of soul coins.
As long as logistics held, victory was firmly within Anbaixiu's grasp. Thus, he had no reason to rush. He only needed to secure his fundamentals and proceed according to plan. The one who truly ought to be anxious was Cyric.
Ever since taking command of power transcending mortality, Anbaixiu's comprehension of so-called deities had grown increasingly profound.
Cyric's divine portfolio was unstable primarily because he had driven himself mad. He deceived himself, incapable of seeing through his own lies. Over the years, this caused his divine power to wane and his divine authority to diminish.
The crisis Cyric faced was like a dam filled to the brim and teetering on overflow, while Anbaixiu was an ant gnawing at its foundation.
Back when he was still a mortal, Anbaixiu had already gnawed a hairline fracture into that dam.
Yet back then, Anbaixiu had been unaware of it.
He was merely an ant bustling about for survival who had accidentally cracked the dam, unable even to discern where that fissure was or how wide it had spread.
Now, however, Anbaixiu had formally attained divine power.
It was not merely raw might, but profound insights that no mortal could fathom.
Anbaixiu could view everything from a higher perspective, including the hairline crack he had previously opened. In fact, his fingers were already hooked into the fracture; with just a little force, he could pry it into a breach, allowing the Prince of Lies' power to spill out.
Cyric was in mortal peril. Thus, he could not afford to sit idly by—unless he intended to revert to being a mortal.
In Anbaixiu's calculations, regardless of the danger, Cyric would have no choice but to swallow the bait.
Yet Anbaixiu had not expected Cyric to choose an entirely different, unanticipated response.
Just as Anbaixiu began minting soul coins, he sensed a disturbance. With a wave of his hand, he projected a massive scrying display.
He saw a pale elf plummeting from the sky, pivoting sharply just before crashing into the ground, and flying straight toward his palace.
It was an avatar of Cyric—appearing openly and brazenly like this?
What is this lunatic playing at?
Anbaixiu reached out, and Cyric's avatar was plucked directly into the Grand Library.
Cyric showed no surprise at all. Looking around, his gaze finally settled on Anbaixiu. He smiled and said, "At last we meet, famed Deceiver. You appear far more ordinary than I imagined."
Interlacing his fingers, Anbaixiu replied placidly, "I am not your father; I have no obligation to cater to your fantasies."
Cyric frowned. Anbaixiu's vulgar retort was quite unexpected.
"You will pay for your insolence," Cyric threatened. "I have already seen through your schemes. The army along the River Styx tributary is merely bait. Did you think I would walk into your trap so easily?"
"Did you come all the way to Hell just to tell me that?"
Anbaixiu rubbed his fingers, wondering if he should just crush him here and now. To his eyes, Cyric was having another mental episode—his chronic arrogance and delusion clouding his mind, driving him to come here to make pointless threats.
Yet Cyric spoke with utter confidence: "Proclaiming victory is a pleasure impossible to refuse. I am here to declare triumph, and to offer you a chance. Submit to me—this is your final opportunity."
"Does Asmodeus know you are trying to recruit an Archduke of the Hells?" Anbaixiu countered.
"Invoking the Lord of Hell as your backer won't save you. You are completely isolated. Not only has Asmodeus yet to acknowledge your status, but the other archdukes won't lift a finger to aid you.
"What's more, you have barely mastered your divine power, yet you recklessly shared your strength with mere mortals... Your bait is barbed, deadly enough to kill any fish that bites. But now, just how much power do you have left?"
At those words, Anbaixiu's expression finally shifted.
Not because of Cyric's speech, but because he sensed an active invasion into Hell.
The restricted spatial conduits were being forcibly breached—and at more than one point.
Noticing Anbaixiu's expression, Cyric gloated, "My target is you, and you are right here in Hell. Why should I bother taking your bait? Did you think I didn't know you disguised the Elegy Poetry Society's Headless Horseman as your daughter?
"I admit that undead is exceptionally gifted, but a mortal is ultimately a mortal. Granting him power rivaling a deity must have cost you dearly. Now, do you still have the strength to repel the invasion of five abyssal lords?"
"You certainly are well-connected," Anbaixiu remarked coldly.
Indeed, five distinct locations in Avernus were under assault, and the intruders possessed immense power, rampantly destabilizing the spatial integrity of Hell.
Believing victory was already in his grasp, Cyric continued smugly, "Your greatest blunder was squandering your divine power recklessly. Even with my example before you, you still acted with wanton abandon. Not that it's surprising—a mortal suddenly elevated to godhood without undergoing proper trials naturally loses their head in arrogance.
"You still have a chance. Submit to me, and surrender this devil body to those abyssal lords. Once they devour your flesh, they will depart satisfied. At least that will allow those around you to survive."
"I am not like you, Cyric," Anbaixiu said unhurriedly.
Failing to see any panic on Anbaixiu's face, Cyric felt something was amiss.
Clearly, he held every advantage right now.
Who in all of Avernus could possibly help Anbaixiu resist five abyssal lords?
Bel? That useless coward was already hiding away on the sidelines, watching the show.
The other archdukes wouldn't intervene either—such were the rules among devils: if you couldn't even pass your inaugural trial, you had no business being a devil.
The lawful good deities of Mount Celestia?
Equally impossible. Hell would never permit the gods of Mount Celestia to enter, not even through avatars.
Besides, if Anbaixiu could borrow the power of Mount Celestia, he would have released Zariel long ago.
The moment he became an archduke, Anbaixiu understood the deep conflict between Hell and Mount Celestia; Zariel had to remain locked away. Whether she was punished was one thing, but letting her loose to swing her greatsword across Hell was out of the question.
Cyric sneered at Anbaixiu, "Don't tell me you're still pinning your hopes on Jergal? I've known Jergal far longer than you have; that withered skeleton will never lift a finger in person."
In Cyric's eyes, the only member of the Elegy Poetry Society worth worrying about was Jergal.
The others were mere mortals, and the only one on the verge of godhood, Aige, was preoccupied with the momentous endeavor of the Triad's convergence. With the ritual already underway, there was no way she could appear in Hell.
Anbaixiu didn't answer. Instead, after sensing the planar disturbances carefully, he said to Cyric, "Marilith Queen Shaktari, the Great Mother, Demogorgon, King of Ghouls Doresain... and the last one, Beshaba, Maid of Misfortune. It's those five, correct?"
Cyric could not fathom what gave Anbaixiu such composure.
Sharing divine power was no easy feat. Lord of the First Layer of Hell sounded grand, but the true authority remained in Asmodeus's hands; what was divvied out to the archdukes of the Nine Hells was relatively limited.
Otherwise, Zariel wouldn't have been suppressed for years and would have long used that power to rebel.
Anbaixiu had just assumed the throne and was already dispersing his power left and right. Right now, he was at most at the level of a lesser deity. Even if this counted as his divine realm, how many resources and how much power could he actually mobilize?
Thinking of this, Cyric's smugness returned. He had won after all.
"You may think that, at worst, you can discard this title of Archduke of Hell and go back to being a mortal. But everything you built in Hell will be destroyed, and you and everyone around you will be annihilated. Of course, you still have time to send them out of Hell. I look forward to your death throes."
Looking at Cyric's triumphant demeanor, Anbaixiu remarked simply, "Who told you that I lent my power to Gareth?"
Cyric froze for a second, then countered, "Are you still resorting to clumsy lies at a time like this? The so-called Deceiver who duped deities is nothing more than a dull sore loser."
Gareth's prowess along the River Styx tributary was plain for all to see. No matter how he tried to hide it, he had repeatedly manifested divine power; otherwise, he wouldn't have even breached the defenses of those demons.
"You got your information from Youjiaxi the ghoul, didn't you?" Anbaixiu said. "I had Gareth disguise himself as Melina using my most adept illusions; you couldn't have seen through it so easily. And your ability to enlist the King of Ghouls, a demon lord, was also thanks to Youjiaxi bridging the connection, right?"
Cyric did not answer, but his silence was answer enough.
Anbaixiu continued, "From the moment I realized you would come looking for trouble sooner or later, I looked into everything about you. And I have a rather bad habit: severe persecution mania. It stems from the countless mistakes and blunders I made over centuries. Every time someone targets me, I imagine dozens of ways they might plot against me.
"So, while I couldn't be certain whether there was a traitor within the Elegy Poetry Society, I operated on the assumption that there was. I even factored in the possibility that Gareth might turn around and stab me in the back. That the traitor turned out to be Youjiaxi... didn't surprise me all that much.
"The first time I met him, I felt he was different from the other members. Clearly a ghoul, yet dressed elegantly like a gentleman. Among all the members, he was the only one straining so hard to suppress his desires. For an undead, such behavior only piles on relentless pressure. His betraying me is completely expected; the slightest temptation could snap his taut strings.
"But Youjiaxi didn't know just how terrifying Gareth truly is. His impression of Gareth was stuck at high-rank legendary, or roughly on par with the Demonic Dragon Tyrant. But when I saw Gareth again after becoming Archduke of Hell, I understood: Gareth's soul was incomplete. For the sake of his beloved, Gareth periodically sought Jergal's aid to have Kelemvor, the God of Death, cleave his soul and diminish his divine power. Otherwise, he would have ascended to godhood and left the mortal realm long ago."
Cyric was incredulous. "What would be the point of doing that?!" he blurted out in shock.
"Because Canggu cannot abandon her father, and that old bone dragon cannot abandon the remnant dragonkin. And Gareth could never leave Canggu."
Anbaixiu sighed with admiration. That good brother was a true man. No wonder discerning women were drawn to him; this wasn't some legendary boon for attracting wealthy patrons, but the natural charm a real man inherently possessed.
"Oh, right. Before Gareth set out, I took great pains to mend his soul. Along the River Styx tributary, unconstrained by Ao's rules, he can unleash his power to his heart's content. As for the current Gareth, even I have no idea how terrifyingly strong he is."
An illusionary projection flickered to life between Cyric and Anbaixiu, displaying Gareth slaughtering his way through the demonic horde, not a single fiend capable of withstanding his charge.
Having finished his explanation, Anbaixiu rose from his seat.
The laws of Hell manifested before him; that steadily beating heart exuded a terrifying, colossal pressure.
Cyric was once again stunned. The power before his eyes was so horrific, even greater than Zariel's back in the day.
Zariel's true form had been an angel from Mount Celestia—a battle marshal of formidable combat prowess.
A deity's power derived from three sources: the nature of their divine portfolio, the intrinsic strength of their true form, and the manner in which they wielded their power.
Tiamat was merely a lesser deity, yet in physical combat, the five-headed chromatic dragon's true form could casually crush many lesser gods underfoot.
Portfolio traits played a role as well; the Lord of Storms was mighty because of his portfolio over grand cataclysms, granting apex destructive power.
What did Anbaixiu have? Nothing more than a partitioned slice of Hell's planar laws. His original lich form was trivial, and as for application, how could a mortal who had merely stumbled upon dumb luck to become a god even comprehend divine power, let alone surpass Zariel?
Cyric could not comprehend it, but Anbaixiu gave him the answer straight:
"Don't compare me to yourself, Cyric. You ascended because of the cataclysm when Ao's wrath caused the fall of the pantheon. You were the lucky brat who had prepared nothing. Becoming a god in your youth, you foolishly misused your power, driving yourself mad and losing the ability to think for centuries, only recently regaining a shred of sanity.
"Cyric, have you ever truly pondered what a deity is, or what divine power means?"
Anbaixiu's interrogation made Cyric grit his teeth in humiliation, as though slapped across the face. Disregarding Cyric's feelings entirely, Anbaixiu continued, "I am not like you, Cyric. I have walked this world for centuries. The villainies I have committed and the sins I have witnessed are more than this Grand Library could ever hold.
"Zariel was fundamentally an imprisoned angel, but I... I am perhaps a natural-born devil. Pray to Ao, Cyric, for the one standing before you now is the Master of Avernus, the First Layer of Hell—an Archduke far more suited to the role than Zariel ever was."
Anbaixiu's form swelled colossal, as if poised to shatter the vaulted ceiling of the Grand Library.
His massive palm transformed into an unfathomable deluge of energy, pressing down upon Cyric.
Cyric dispersed his form into nothingness to evade the irresistible assault, but invisible chains materialized all around, binding his body fast and preventing etherealization.
This was Anbaixiu's divine realm; no power could override planar law.
Tens of thousands of chains formed a ribcage-like cage, locking Cyric tight, held firmly in Anbaixiu's grasp.
Anbaixiu looked at Cyric inside the cage and said, "I anticipated ten thousand different contingencies, yet never imagined you would be foolish enough to appear before me in person."
Crossing his arms, Cyric sneered, "You had better deal with those five abyssal lords first. Even if you are stronger than Zariel, do you truly think you can handle five demon lords joining forces?"
Cyric was not overly panicked; this was merely a trivial avatar, no more significant to his true body than a single strand of hair. Even if it were destroyed, it would hardly matter beyond a slight loss of face.
"I want you to watch," Anbaixiu replied. "Then you will understand why you lost. Being a god isn't just about fighting and killing."
Chapter 629